One of the lessons to be learned from the eastern Tennessee fires is that fire departments and their communities can do a better job of proactively providing emergency information to an often-overlooked target population: tourists.

If we thought the high-jacking of airliners and flying them into buildings was “low tech” terrorism, I doubt we’ve seen nothing yet. We can rest assured that those terrorist elements that would do harm on U.S. soil are “taking notes” about the devastation being created by these intentionally set forest fires, the chaos being created in the local populations, and the stress on firefighting resources and other emergency response assets in those communities.

Chief Robert Avsec has compiled a bibliography of previous articles and posts he's written on the subjects of firefighter mental health, depression, PTSD, alcohol and substance abuse, and much more. Firefighters and officers alike should benefit from the information contained in these articles.

But the problem of acceptance in the fire service goes beyond that experienced by women. People of color (men and women), those who are gay or transsexual or just somehow just “different” are not as readily accepted—if they ever are—by the white male majority.

I’ve always believed that the most important aspect of better firefighter health and safety is the person who uses the equipment: the firefighter. The personal behaviors of the individual firefighter will always have the greatest influence on firefighter health and safety.

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Frightening photos from wildfires burning in North Carolina. Now before any of our firefighter brothers and sisters out west say, “That’s not a real wildfire,” please keep in mind that here in the eastern USA we don’t combat fires on the scale and magnitude that you do out west. That’s a fact, and you ...

Tanya Bettridge, a fire and life safety educator and essayist, offers a unique perspective on how lessons she derived from the recent U.S. Presidential Election can be used by fire and EMS departments to communicate better with their stakeholders.

Today's firefighters face a multitude of situations daily that require knowledge, skills, and abilities far beyond those required to fight fires, provide medical care and rescue entrapped victims. Many of those situations require skills more akin to a social worker than that of a firefighter.

If it’s good enough for the employees of Exxon-Mobil—pay attention to driving and don’t talk on your cell phone—it’s certainly good enough for those of us in public safety—the people who have to deal with the aftermath of poor decisions that people make on a daily basis. Let’s all “get on the stick”: Hang up and drive!

What traits do you believe make a firefighter a good candidate to promote to Company Officer? I asked several fire service colleagues the question: What traits to you look for in firefighters as potential company officers? Two of those colleagues, Fire Chief Bud Backer and Division Chief Susan Tamme, provided some really good insights back to me via e-mail. I could only use a few of their comments in the finished article, but the rest were so good I just couldn’t leave them on the “cutting room floor.”